


Whether It Works Or Not

by amorremanet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Angst, Body Image, Community: hc_bingo, Crossdressing, Depression, Drugs, Dysfunctional Family, Episode: s05e04 The End, Family, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Issues, Genderqueer Character, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized cissexism, Makeup, Other, Pining, Pre-Slash, Sick Dean Winchester, Trans Character, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-13
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-21 00:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorremanet/pseuds/amorremanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Cas almost gets away with this, but as he pats Cas’s back, Dean says, “Are—Cas, are you stoned?”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Pulling back, Cas blinks at Dean, lets another chuckle slip past his lips. “Somewhat, yes.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>And he could kiss Dean for actually bothering to notice it.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Each ficlet was written for an hc_bingo prompt; the first was written for the prompt, "mutation."

When Castiel Milton comes home from his sophomore year at Edlund College, most of his family still isn’t on speaking terms. Luke won’t answer anyone’s calls or emails except for Gabriel’s, not that it matters because no one can find Gabriel on a regular basis—he’s usually shacked up at his girlfriend’s, but of course, no one believes Cas when he says so because that would be too predictable for Gabriel.  
  
Anna’s in a fight with Father, who hasn’t spoken to Mother since faxing her the divorce papers, and she doesn’t seem particularly inclined to talk to him either—but she’ll certainly talk to Cas, telling him all about how their family belongs in one of her psychology textbooks, or on some televised freak-show, or how can Cas even sit at the dinner table with either of their parents and not criticize them, how can he still go to their church with Father Zachariah when he preaches that Cas is going to Hell for preferring other men, how can he refuse to think for himself.  
  
Rachel’s seventeen and insists that she’s going to go to Vassar and write a vaguely fictionalized memoir and never have to see her family ever again—because that’s what they all deserve for lying to her in the way that they have for her entire life, and it’s what  _Cas_  deserves for trying so hard to keep the peace when it’s obvious that Father’s the one who’s in the right, except for the cheating on Mother issue, and that Mother has no right to claim anything like what she’s trying to get away with claiming.  
  
Barry’s on some indefinite retreat to a sprout farm or Lord only knows what he’s up to since dropping out of Kripke U, and Michael’s in Afghanistan and can’t talk to anyone—not that he would if he had more reliable means of contacting the family than writing letters.  
  
The only person who’s really speaking with Cas is Anna—everyone else just speaks to him, or rather  _at_  him. He spends his summer sitting through more screaming rants than he cares to count—more of Father’s tirades about how Mother’s just upset over things that aren’t her business in the first place and how she ought to be grateful that he hasn’t thought to pursue her missteps as thoroughly as he’d like.  
  
More of Mother’s tongue-lashings over how her ex-husband is a snake and a cheat and no one worthwhile to anybody, how she regrets every marrying him in the first place, how he stole the best years of her life (which are so much worse than Father’s because Cas understands why she’s angry, but at least Father outright ignores his children, instead of, like Mother, implying that he wishes that he’d never had any to begin with).  
  
More of Anna’s invective about how Mother deserves so much better than everything she’s getting out of this divorce (Cas doesn’t disagree), even though she hasn’t ever really been an active parent, preferring daycare and trusting Luke and Michael as babysitters, so Cas doesn’t understand where Anna’s newfound loyalty to her is coming from.  
  
And that’s not saying anything about the drunk-dials from Gabriel, who always decides to wake Cas up in the middle of the night to cry at him about how he really just wants everyone to get along and love each other, the way that they’re supposed to, how he just wants to get through one Sunday dinner without it seeming like the goddamned Apocalypse.  
  
Because Gabriel really makes that desire obvious when he drinks his way through dinner, drowns himself in wine until he can’t talk to any of their siblings without throwing up some insult. Some offhanded comment about how Barry looks like he’s put on weight, or Anna’s wide-eyed, vaguely radical idealism makes her sound like an idiot, or how Rachel couldn’t string a sentence together to save her life, much less sell all the shitty, vindictive books she’ll probably never manage to finish writing, or how their parents might as well be the Devil incarnate.  
  
The only reason he doesn’t say anything about Cas is because he sends Cas pornography instead. Cas can’t even complain about how uninterested he is in what his brother thinks is hot because he doesn’t want to know what Gabriel would say about him, given half the chance to criticize Cas for something.  
  
Moreover, he can’t complain about any of this because he’s figured it out—Cas might not be the genius that he’s supposed to be, but he’s put all the pieces together for himself. The insight comes to him six weeks before he, Anna, and Mother are supposed to leave to move him back into the Edlund College dormitories, as he’s dragging his pencil down his sketchbook, over yet another drawing of Dean Winchester, his best friend and his roommate from last year, who’s going to be his roommate this year, too, because Cas can’t handle meeting and adjusting to someone new.  
  
As he’s sharpening the definition of Dean’s cheekbones, Cas realizes: it’s not his family’s fault that they look at him and see a pushover, some submissive, emotionless doormat who they can rant at ad nauseam without it affecting him—he’s never given them any reason to see him in a different light. They’re so absorbed in themselves and their own drama, their own perspectives on everything they do to each other that if he changed now, they probably wouldn’t even notice that he did anything to change. No one says anything when he goes into town and comes back with a new jacket—a battered green one from the thrift store—or when he starts spending most of his time with their cousin, Balthazar.  
  
That’s where it all starts, with Balthazar, with the marijuana that he grows in his basement. Cas doesn’t see the problem with the way he smokes, with how much he likes the way the marijuana dulls everything—or, well, he does see the problem, but he doesn’t care. Nothing makes anyone notice that he’s any different, so why waste the energy?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt used: "stranded/survival scenario."

Dean checks his phone and then the full-length mirror hanging on the inside of the closet door—he’s still got a good ten minutes until Cas gets here and needs help moving his shit around—and that’s not a lot of time to make sure that Dean looks normal. As normal as he possibly can look, anyway. At the moment, he’s looking rather like a scarecrow.

He tries wiggling out of the slate grey hoodie that he stole from his little brother—it’s huge, oversized on Sam, even since his latest growth spurt’s topped him out at a full six-five, and Dean dissolves into the mess of fabric—but the image he cuts without it’s an even sorrier sight. His Eye of the Tiger t-shirt hangs around him, billows around the sharp angles of his hips and flat planes of his chest and stomach. Cheekbones strain against the skin just like the dark circles dig out a place beneath his eyes. Even his freckles have lost their color, started withering into the rest of his face.

Everything about him’s overcast with a sheen of grey. Without meaning to, Dean tries to melt back into the off-white dormitory walls—he only comes back into clarity when he ends up hacking into his elbow. This goddamn cough won’t go away, no matter how much vitamin C and DayQuil Dean throws at it—he’s had it on and off all fucking summer, and now it’s followed him to school.

Dean sighs, running his fingers over his tightly notched belt. He picks the hoodie up off the floor, throws it back on, goes back to drowning in this fucking sweatshirt. He leaves himself slouching at the hips and looking like he could fall over at a moment’s notice. There’s no way that he’s gonna get out of this encounter and still look normal—no way he’s going to convince Cas and Anna and Mrs. Milton that he’s fine. That everything’s okay. That everything’s normal.

Hell—Dean’s not even sure what normal means anymore. He can’t tell if he ever knew for sure.

 

This summer, Dean could easily call the summer of Adam, but that puts too much of the blame on that kid when all he did was lose his mom and end up on the Winchesters’ doorstep. When he doesn’t deserve to get held accountable for jack with a side of squat.

And yet, it’s not as though Dean can just act like Adam didn’t complicate everything, like his presence didn’t send all of what Dean knows at home clamoring for the nuthouse. Everything that happened goes back to that kid—to how he’s ten years old and an orphan now, and how Mom cares about him so much more than Dad, even when he cheated on her to knock Kate Milligan up with Adam—and everything that happened probably wouldn’t have, at least not in the same way that it did, if not for Adam showing up, playing the spark to a whole mess of kindling.

So a summer that was supposed to get spent waiting tables at the Roadhouse for Aunt Ellen, joking around with Jo and Ash, meeting this Jessica chick who got Sam all excited, and having a good time? Well, it got spent waiting tables as planned (careful not to cough too close to anyone’s orders or anything gross like that), taking care of a grieving ten-year-old (or trying to help out with that, anyway), chasing after an unsettled and pissed off sixteen-year-old (whose thoughts about Jessica Moore turned, instead, to thoughts about Ruby Fremont), sometimes visiting Dad at Uncle Bobby’s or Mike Guenther’s—telling him to please come back home—and just trying to keep quiet in the kitchen or on the other sides of doors, so Mom and Dad wouldn’t drag him into their explosive fights.

Divorce seemed imminent but never came—never even entered the discussion for reasons that Dean can’t even begin to fathom—and Dean just stopped making time to sit down for family dinners. He took more shifts at the diner and later ones at that. He kept moving, kept on his feet—as long as he was moving, he didn’t have to think about the situation at home—and it worked out that he worked the graveyard shift with Ash so often. He wasn’t hungry and he couldn’t sleep anyway, so why not make the most of the situation. Might as well get paid to stay awake until all hours.

Every run of sleeplessness ended in a crèche but even those weren’t very restful, so Dean woke up exhausted (and still not hungry), dragging himself out of bed just to get down to the car, just to get to the diner on time. He trudged through his shifts until something clicked—if something ever clicked, because sometimes, it didn’t. He notched his belt up tighter, brushed off any questions from Jo or Ash or Bobby or Ellen about whether or not he was all okay, and thought nothing of it.

Of course he was okay. Why wouldn’t he be okay. Somebody in his family had to be okay, and since no one else was, that left the job at Dean’s feet. He didn’t think anything of it. Why should he have?

Which lasted until someone else thought something of it for him. Not until, one night, he turned down a slice of Mom’s apple pie—all because he had even less of an appetite than usual, not because he didn’t want any—and found himself carted off to Doctor Robert’s office. Nominally, it was for an early physical, but the writing was on the wall in letters twenty feet high. He was there because something, Mom had decided, was wrong with her Baby. Something needed to get fixed.

 

But of course, nothing did. Dean guessed that it wouldn’t before Mom took him to Doctor Robert’s and he wound up being right—no diagnosis came to light, none of the tests came back with anything that might lead to one, and Dean got left alone all over again. Left to figure things out on his own, the way he had all summer—and to no avail, the way things had gone all summer.

The only thing that Dean’s managed to suss out for himself is that he doesn’t really care—not about being sick all the time, not about the way his body’s turning on him, not about much of anything. He only manages to fake caring enough to make people think that he’s fine, and at that, he only does it because he doesn’t want to be bothered. Not by their half-assed concerns and not by anything, if he can avoid it.

More than just that, though, Dean needs to avoid any discussion that might end up with him admitting: he doesn’t entirely mind the way his body feels when it’s like this. He should, but he doesn’t. He minds the exhaustion, sure, and he minds the way that people look at him—the way that Mom and Sam furrow their brows and frown in concern, watching over him at every meal, or cast sidelong glances his way as though to say that they wished he’d just let them help with this nonexistent problem—but he doesn’t mind anything else about it, about the way he’s withered, gotten more than a little pointy. Something about it feels right.

Things are going to be better now that he’s all moved into the Blake dorms, though—September means a fresh start in at least one area of Dean’s life. September means seeing Cas’s Mother’s Hyundai pulling up in front of their new dormitory, and helping Cas lug his suitcase and his cardboard boxes of books up the two flights of stairs to their room, and scooping Cas up into a tight hug—clinging to his chest and shoulders—as soon as Anna’s not around to ask if they’re dating yet, as soon as Mrs. Milton’s not around to tut and disapprove.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt used: "hugs."

Dean wilts into their first hug of the semester—more than that, something’s off about him—something’s different, and Cas doesn’t fuss when Dean pulls him in closer, just because he might manage to suss it out from holding onto Dean tighter. He noses at sharp, clear collarbone when he buries his face around Dean’s neck; he can curl his arms all the way around Dean’s chest quite easily, even with the oversized sweatshirt trying to obstruct his ability to do so. Dean snickers under the brush of Cas’s three-day stubble against his cheek—he should probably have shaved before coming up here—but halfway through this thought, the answer he wants smacks him.  
  
Cas clings to Dean. “You’ve gotten thin,” he says against the skin of Dean’s neck, whispering it as though Mother and Anna might hop out of the closet, ripe with comments about Dean and Cas living in sin or with gloating about how she knew that her little brother had it bad for Dean Winchester. Cas lets Dean go from the hug, but keeps a hand on his shoulder—more like wrapped around the bone thereof and a good deal of cotton and hardly anything else. Cas wrinkles his nose down at Dean’s oversized sweatshirt, trying to make out exactly where his body lies in all that fabric. Cas can’t make anything out easily, so he blinks up at Dean instead, waits for him to say something.  
  
When he doesn’t—when he drags his teeth across his lower lip and looks everywhere but at Cas’s face without saying anything—Cas tries again: “Dean, you’ve gotten  _quite_  thin,” he says, squeezes Dean’s shoulder. “Are you feeling alright?”  
  
“I don’t think I’m contagious, if that’s what you’re worried about, Pretty Boy.” Dean shrugs, and Cas takes it as a cue to let go of his shoulder. With a huff under his breath, Dean drags his fingers back through his hair. “Yeah, we don’t really know what’s going on—I spent the whole summer kinda on-and-off sick, and… It hasn’t really gone away, but I’m fine. As fine as I can be under the circumstances, anyway. It’s pretty much a Kobayashi Maru, ‘suffer through it or make a big stink about shit you can’t fix’ kinda situation, so I’m making do with what I got, you know what I mean, Mister Spock?”  
  
Cas furrows his brow and tilts his head. Chuckles despite himself—no doubt a side-effect of the blunt in his pocket, the one he took a few hits off earlier, back at the motel, before Mother and Anna roused for the morning—and then, despite it, insists, “I don’t think that’s very funny.” He sighs, shakes his head. “Something serious could be wrong, Dean, and if it impacts your health, then it is hardly a laughing matter…”  
  
Cas trails off into his own round of snickering, one that builds up into breathy laughter—he tries to bite back on them, but Dean’s crossing his eyes on purpose and screwing his lips up into some twisted nonsense that looks like a curl of smoke, and for no apparent reason, this strikes Cas as hilarious. It shouldn’t do so—not least while Cas wants to talk about Dean, about how everything about him looks grey and bloodless, cold and wilting, working at half-power and more than a little bit inclined toward passing out. He can’t stop laughing at Dean’s expression, though. He can’t stop the way that the laughter wracks his body, and he can’t stop himself from reaching out and pulling Dean into another tight hug.  
  
Cas almost gets away with this, but as he pats Cas’s back, Dean says, “Are—Cas, are you  _stoned_?”  
  
Pulling back, Cas blinks at Dean, lets another chuckle slip past his lips. “Somewhat, yes.”  
  
And he could kiss Dean for actually bothering to notice it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt used: "counseling."

Because he needs the phys ed credit, Dean signs up for a beginners’ ballet class with Rhonda Hurley. She tells him not to expect too much from it—but, then again, she took dance lessons back when she was a kid and everyone called her Robert, thought she was a little boy. The classes that they offer here don’t go nearly as in-depth as she’d like them to—even accounting for how she has a biased opinion.  
  
“They’re more like a way to keep limber than anything else,” she tells Dean over coffee in the student cafe, a few nights before their first class is supposed to happen. “I mean, I get why they can’t realistically do that much with them. They only have six weeks to work with, and you get all kinds of skill levels under the heading of, ‘beginner.’ Just don’t go into things and expect that you’ll come out ready to star in  _Swan Lake_ , is all I’m saying.”  
  
“Because I could totally ever do that in the first place. I’m just going there for the credit,” Dean insists. “Playground Games meets on the day I have two long classes, Fencing meets during my one course’s film screening period, and I can’t quit smoking or ever remember to go to the gym on my own, so… Beginners’ Ballet? Sounds like the winning ticket to me.”  
  
Rhonda tilts her head at Dean. Wrinkles her nose. Narrows her eyes at his mouth, then down at his nails—apparently, she’s checking him over for nicotine stains: “I didn’t think you smoked, Cutie?”  
  
Dean shakes his head. “I don’t. It’s why I can’t quit doing it for the gym credit. I mean, I could start for a week and fake them out like Chuck and Charlie did, but thing is? I’d probably start  _liking_  it, and then I wouldn’t  _want_  to quit, and well, that’d be kind of a problem, wouldn’t it.”  
  
Rhonda smirks and Dean chuckles, slips out of his sneaker so he can nudge his toes into her ankle—which makes her whole smile light up for him, and makes her gently kick him back. Well, as gently as she can get in those pointy-toed heels. She asks him, next, what all’s on his mind these days, and Dean doesn’t really have an answer for her. He blinks at her, gapes more than he’s willing to admit, but he can’t come up with actual  _words_.  
  
Partly, it’s because the smoking issue makes him think of something else entirely—makes him want to ask her what she would make of Cas going from zero to sparking up at least three or four times a week. Possibly, maybe, there’s a chance he’s doing it daily, but Dean doesn’t have any evidence to support that claim—but he needs to ask somebody about it sooner or later because Dean’s not sure if he should worry or just be glad that the stick’s come out of his best friend’s ass. Dean’s not sure if Cas is really sparking up that often or not—really, it could just seem like he’s doing it a lot because he’s never so much as gone near pot before.  
  
Mostly, though, it’s because Dean can’t honestly think of anything that’s been on his mind lately—not even in a passive capacity. Nothing concrete, anyway—nothing that’s translatable or that Rhonda really wants to hear—nothing that Dean can expect anybody else to understand when he doesn’t understand it himself. All Dean understands is that he feels sick to his stomach when he tries to eat, and ready to puke when people look at him sidelong with their faces twisted up in pity or something like it, as though they’re tying to say,  _there’s something kind of fundamentally off about you isn’t there, boy?_ , and like death warmed up just over the idea of getting out of bed, trudging across campus to his classes, working through his assignments.  
  
He really can’t talk about how he doesn’t mind these changes all that much—how minding it seems like far too much work for not enough payoff—how the extra room in his clothes, the way they hide his body, doesn’t even bother him all that much, not least because he feels delicate and rather likes that feeling.  
  
So he settles for making up some shit about how he’s doing all right, just worrying about how Adam’s taking to his new school and how Sammy’s doing with the SAT prep course that he just had to have. As soon as Dean can change the subject, though, he has to ask about Rhonda’s new makeup—at least, the pink blush lighting up the apples of her cheeks is new to him. And it’s easier to talk makeup—even considering what people think about guys who are into makeup—than to try talking feelings any.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt used: "fire."

O for a muse of fire—Cas is being melodramatic as he paces around the dormitory roof, as he palms at his lighter in his jeans’ hip pocket. He should stop—he should definitely stop being so melodramatic—but that sounds immensely silly. He runs thumb along the lighter’s flat, wide edge, then flicks it out and into his hand, digs his thumb at the wheel—it doesn’t spark up immediately, though. Just his luck, isn’t that.  
  
He has to try four times before he gets a flame out of the stupid thing—Cas sighs, staring at the flickering fire. He can’t be running out of juice just yet, but then again, he thought that the weed he brought from home would last him until October study days, or at least through the first month of school—but, as Dean would put it, no dice. Here Cas is, not even a full three weeks into term and seriously considering asking Balthazar to do something that’s probably illegal.  
  
Of course, it’s illegal for Balthazar to have the drugs in the first place—but shipping it across state lines is more likely an even worse idea for him.  
  
All good sense says that it wouldn’t even be too difficult to find someone on campus who’d sell Cas some marijuana—anymore, his red-rimmed eyes and semi-permanent snickering would rule out any chance that he was there to rat the dealer out to someone’s RA. Maybe he could ask Meg where to go—she might know someone he could ask about pot—or there’s always the rumor about Bela’s foster brother and his extracurricular activities. Crowley probably sells drugs—most anyone on campus knows that—he almost definitely sells pharmaceuticals, but he might deal in marijuana, too.  
  
Cas sighs, slouching to the floor, sliding down against the wall. He flicks his lighter again. Doesn’t get the fire that he wants. Flicks the wheel again, and again, and again until he finally gets a flame—he holds it there, watches it burn, only lets up when the door to the stairwell slams open, when someone else storms up onto the roof with him.  
  
“Oh my  _god_ , Cas,” Dean says as his face slowly comes into focus—some kind of hyper-focus, even, because as he gets closer, Cas can make out all of Dean’s freckles in a way he’s never been able to do before.  
  
Dean comes over to where Cas is sitting before Cas can even tell what’s going on. He sinks to the dirty cement floor and goes quiet for a moment. For long enough that Cas can take the joint out of his pocket and start turning it over in his fingers—he stares at it instead of at Dean, because the joint isn’t judging him for anything, much less for wanting to get high instead of feeling… whatever it is he’s felt all summer. This gnawing, perpetual sense of being ill at ease, of shouldering an anvil and having a ball-and-chain fixed up to his heart, like everything’s too much and he’s going to throw up because that’s all he can do. This itch to just catch fire because it’d be better than all of these nonsense emotions.  
  
“Didn’t you just get high this morning?” Dean says, catching Cas as he eyes his lighter. “Not that I’m against you getting high, if that’s what you want to do, but… Don’t you think you’re smoking kind of a lot these days? Do you want to—I don’t know, it’s just. What’s going on with you, Cas?”  
  
The unspoken part of Dean’s question is obvious:  _I’m worried about you. Talk to me_ —and Cas wishes that were enough to settle any part of him—his heartaches, his crawling skin, his nausea, the itching all up and down the insides of his lungs, the sparks that never become a flame. Cas pockets the joint again, pockets his lighter, and shakes his head with a sigh.  
  
“It’s nothing, Dean,” he says, even though he doesn’t believe it, not enough to sell himself the lie. “I’m fine.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt used: "imprisonment."

As much as something’s definitely off about Cas, something’s definitely right about ballet class—more so than Dean predicted, even considering that he knew going into this that he wanted to be there so much more than he’d let anyone else think. There’s something right about stretching out at the bar, bending and contorting into the various positions—there’s something right about the way the black leggings cling around Dean’s legs and the loose fit of the t-shirt—there’s something right about rolling up onto the balls of his feet because there’s no way Dean’s ready to dance on his toes just yet.  
  
There’s just something so right about the whole business of dancing. There’s just something so right and the best thing about it—or possibly the worst—is that Dean had no idea that anything was wrong before he started dancing.  
  
…Well, he did, but only in the vague way that he always knows that  _something’s_ wrong about his entire fucking life—that business doesn’t count because it hangs around no matter what Dean does, no matter what he tries. Something clawing at his insides, making everything about his body and his life feel wrong, ill-made, and out of place—like there’s no hope left for anyone or anything.  
  
Like his body is some kind of prison, some place he’s doomed to suffer through living with because there’s nothing else that he can do about it. It’s not like he can just get a new body. It’s not like he can commission a mad scientist to transplant his soul somewhere else—and he can’t exactly fix his body when he has no fucking idea what’s wrong with it.  
  
But that feeling goes away when he’s dancing, and he can’t explain it, not even to himself. Dean just has to live with it—Dean probably just has to accept it, the same way that he accepts so many other things about his mixed up life that he’s tried to but can’t explain.  
  
Which, granted, mostly refers to two things anymore: first, why Cas is smoking up as often as he does, why he’s started buying product from Crowley, and why he definitely sneaks up to the roof twice a day on weekends; and second, the way that Dean feels when Rhonda makes him try all kinds of things he never would’ve considered doing on his own.  
  
Like trying on her panties, just for instance, which has happened once before, but now just becomes something that they do some Tuesday and Thursday nights after their ballet class. They walk the few blocks back to her apartment, wander up the three flights of stairs, and, once the door’s closed behind them, look for the evening’s pair of panties.  
  
Or, well, Rhonda does most of the looking, because she likes calling the shots and Dean doesn’t really have opinions about how any of her underwear might look on him. Sometimes, she picks out pink ones and sometimes purple or black or white, sometimes lacy or satiny, sometimes they have interesting patterns or words spelled out along the ass.  
  
Dean goes along with whatever she decides might be a good idea for him to give a shot. How can he have opinions—how can he have thoughts about any of this? He only ever sees the things in the mirror, once he has them on, and by that point, he cares more about the way the waistbands cut into his sides, the way the fabric rubs up against his skin, the way he has to adjust his junk to fit in them and how he should probably care, but how he really doesn’t.  
  
He should probably care, one Saturday morning after he’s slept over, when she catches him staring as she puts on her makeup, contours around her face with blush and foundation, lights up her eyes with liner and shadow and mascara—Dean should probably care that she invites him over to her vanity, sits him down and asks if this is okay with him, because she’d like to try something out.  
  
Dean should probably care that she has him part his lips so she can dress them up with a wine-dark shade of red, and he should probably care when she traces a thin coat of brown eyeliner along his lids, and he should probably care when she has him roll his eyes back almost into his skull so she can sweep a brush through his lashes, perking them up and making sure, thanks to her mascara, that they stay in place.  
  
He should probably care about any of this. About all of it. Because it’s not exactly something that guys are supposed to do, right?  
  
Except that he can’t care—because just like his dancing, something about this makeup thing feels right. Something about looking at his face and seeing the way that his eyes pop, the way that they look so much greener while his lips look softer and more inviting… Something settles Dean’s stomach, and he wasn’t aware, until it calms, that he felt any kind of nauseated.  
  
He washes the makeup off before Rhonda walks him back to campus—he’s got too much to lose if anybody sees him in it, after all—but Dean can’t bring himself to wipe all of it away. He leaves little traces behind, almost imperceptible, and even forgets about them himself, until he’s washing his face in the shower, and his washcloth comes up colorful, and he remembers just how free that makeup made him feel.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts used are: "counseling" and "wild card (depression)" as a cross-square fill for hc_bingo; and "colorless" for 100 things.

"Dean? Aren't you hungry?"

They're in the dining hall for dinner, the way they always get dinner together, and it takes Dean a good moment to realize that Cas has said anything. At that, Dean only gets the message thanks to Cas snapping his fingers in front of his face, sighing, and telling Dean that all he asked was whether or not Dean's hungry. He doesn't miss the furrowed brow or the way Cas pouts at him, but Dean tries to make nothing out of them.

He shakes his head and nudges his plate away, in Cas's direction. "Cheeseburger's all yours, if you want it."

"I don't want it, but thank you for offering," Cas says. He points his fork down at his plate of pasta, probably by way of emphasizing that he's good with his own food. "Are you sure that you're all right, Dean? As I recall, you didn't eat very much at lunch, either."

"Yeah, well, as I recall, I didn't really have an appetite at lunch, either." Dean's careful to keep his voice deadpan, to play up how he's mocking Cas's original sentence—because that's what he does, and that's what he's good for, making everything into some big joke so no one has to take it seriously. He even gets a snicker out of Cas—which is good, since it amply distracts him from caring about whether or not Dean's hungry, whether or not he's eating much.

Dean's not an idiot; he knows how this him not eating thing looks. But he doesn't need Cas thinking that it's any kind of big deal. Because it's not—it's just not, and it's not an issue because Dean says it's not, so there.

They go quiet for a while after this—after Cas gets done finding Dean's word-twisting so much funnier than it actually is. Cas eats, and Dean picks at his fries, manages to get a couple of them down. Dean mostly stares off into space, but not enough to miss how Cas mostly stares at him—and Dean gets wondering if this silence thing is gonna last longer than just a while. If they're going to head back to the dorm once Cas is done for yet another night of saying nothing to each other. If that's just the new way that things are between him and Cas because Dean's broken and Cas is so often stoned to the gills.

(Can someone even _be_ stoned to the gills? Dean's heard Bela describe Crowley as, "coked to the gills" before—but he's never heard anybody say, "stoned to the gills." Dean likes it to describe how Cas has been though, lately—how Cas has been smoking up until he's even more out-of-touch with the world than usual. How he's been zoning out in the middle of conversations, then coming back some few minutes later with some nonsense about how Dean's freckles all look paler than they're supposed to look. How he sleeps too much on the weekends and how he's stopped talking much or raising his hand in class.

The last of these, Dean's only mostly heard about from Bela, rather than seeing it firsthand. He's only seen it firsthand in _Milton, Blake, and the Bible_ , the English lecture Cas twisted Dean into taking with him. But crooked, double-speaking bitch that she is, Bela wouldn't lie about Cas, not right now, not when things are as serious as they seem.)

That Dean can ponder all of this without getting interrupted ought to be the sign of something very, very wrong with the world—maybe even a sign of some coming Apocalyptic bullshit, what the Hell does Dean know—and when he glances back up from the table, Dean finds Cas blinking at a forkful of penne and marinara like it owes him something. He pouts and only eats it when he notices how Dean's frowning at him—and Dean can tell he notices this because first of all, Cas ducks his chin, stares at the table, and blushes bright pink—the same shade as the pair of satiny panties that Rhonda most likes to make Dean wear.

Would Cas like panties as much as Rhonda does? Dean sighs, drops his gaze again, watches Cas stab over and over and over again at his pasta—and that thought just won't go away: would Cas like panties as much as Rhonda does? Would he understand the way that Dean likes it when the elastic waistbands dig into his sides, or the way he actually doesn't mind having to maneuver his junk around so it'll fit in the panties properly? Cas probably wouldn't even think all that much about it—because it's just underwear, and even before he started smoking, he wouldn't have seen the point of making a huge deal out of what _kind_ of underwear Dean likes.

Except—as Dean remembers from squirming around his seat, feeling his boxer-briefs cleaving to his skin but not tightly enough—the panties situation kind of _is_ a big deal. At least, it is to him. At least, it is to all the people who just wouldn't understand what panties mean to Dean—which is why he can't talk about it here in the dining hall. All he has it in him to ask, when the quiet's gnawed on his nerves more than enough for one night, is simple:

"Cas?" he says. "Are you _sure_ that you're okay? I get it, I know you've told me you are so many times, and you're probably sick of me asking, but you really, _really_ don't seem okay? Just. Talk to me? Please, Cas?"

Cas swallows—that's the only reason Dean realizes that Cas is still eating—and then he sighs. He shakes his head, apparently to wake himself up more than anything. His hair flops around, grazing over his forehead—and Dean can't help wrinkling his nose at that detail, because he's still so used to Cas bothering to gel up his hair in the mornings. It takes Cas a moment—one that's long enough, Dean almost asks his question all over again, because maybe Cas just needs to hear it a second time, or maybe he'll sound less like a douchebag, because maybe that's why Cas is shaking his head… Maybe that's not a rousing gesture. Maybe it's Cas's way of telling Dean to cram a sock in it.

But Cas cuts in before Dean can open his mouth: "If I tell you what's been bothering me," he says, "then I want to know what's been bothering you. And I might be inept at reading social cues, but I _know_ you, Dean. Something has been on your mind. And I don't know why you wouldn't tell me about it, or—"

"The fact that you're stoned nigh on twenty-four-seven these days might have a little something to do with that, don't you think?"

"You wouldn't talk to me about it before you learned that I've been smoking." Cas's eyes flash like he could actually be dangerous—like he's clear-headed and very much himself, instead of whoever else he's trying to be in getting high all the time. "I'll answer your question, but only if you answer mine in return. I think that constitutes a fair trade, don't you?"

Dean huffs, shakes his head. "I can't believe we're fucking haggling over fairness here, but… fine. Whatever. I'll answer your question. Just… tell me what's been going on with you, okay?"

"My parents got divorced," Cas says, as clear and flat as a government report. "Just before summer break started, Mother caught Father cheating on her. Of course, all of my siblings took sides—except for Michael, who instead asked to be moved to active duty service and went took off for Afghanistan—and… No one bothered asking me if I felt anything about what was happening. I assume it was because they still think that my diagnosed neuro-psychological abnormality means that I don't feel anything at all. Luke won't talk to anyone, neither will Rachel, Gabriel's all but outright running away, Anna's angry all the time, my Father thinks that I took Mother's side and have disavowed him because I primarily stayed with her, and I simply…"

Cas breaks off. Sighs. Goes white-knuckled around the fork—and Dean's pretty sure, from the look of things, that he has to be digging his nails into his palm. "I simply wanted to be as emotionless as they all think that I am," he says, voice barely above a whisper. "Or at least, I'd accept what I really got, which is a _break_ from having to feel everything."

"But you know that's not going to work, right?" Dean could smack Cas right now, but on the other hand, he just wishes they weren't in the dining hall, so he could hug the dumb son of a bitch without people staring at them. "Numbing the pain for a while just makes it worse when you actually feel it and all that Professor Dumbledore shit?"

"That's not how it works with broken limbs and other injuries. Numbing the pain makes it more tolerable until it has reduced enough that one can handle it without any chemical assistance." Half-snickering, Cas gives Dean the grimmest, weariest smile that he's ever seen in his life. That smile could fucking slice through diamonds, it's so sharp. And of course, he doesn't let Dean off the hook: "So, I believe we had an agreement. What has been on _your_ mind lately, Dean? What have _you_ been plagued by?"

Dean shrugs, spears a french fry on his fork. "What _hasn't_ been on my mind since fucking June? I mean, I've only been dealing with _my_ parents' threat of divorce, my literal little brother from another mother showing up on our doorstep because his mom died… I'm never hungry, I either can't sleep or I can't wake up, nothing really feels like anything anymore—and when it does feel like something, it's almost always fucking awful—about the only thing I look forward to at all is something I can't talk about to most people—"

"Your ballet class?"

"I just said I didn't want to talk about it, didn't I?" Dean rips through half of the fry, then lets the fork and the other half fall back to his tray. "And to top it all off—because it wasn't bad enough on its own, I guess?—but to top off everything else, there's you. And there's how I should be able to make things better for you, and Sam, and Adam, at the very least, but all three of you are fucking miserable, and… If I'm supposed to be able to do something about it, then sorry, but how is that not my fault?"

Cas rolls his eyes, but gently lays a hand over top of Dean's wrist. "It's not your fault because you can't control everything, Dean. And none of us expect you to—or… I suppose I can only speak for myself. But I don't expect you to control everything, or save everyone, or whatever it is you think you need to do."

"Then what would you have me do instead, Cas? Any bright ideas?"

"Only one." Cas takes a deep breath and squeezes Dean's wrist. "I can hardly claim expertise on the matter—and I very much come from a place of hypocrisy, considering how little I've ever told psychiatrists or psychologists—but… I believe that you should talk to someone, Dean. Someone professional. Health services has therapists who might be able to help you—"

"No. No way, Cas, that's… That's just out of the question. I'm not talking about my bullshit feelings to some fucking shrink—"

"I really think that you should, Dean." By way of emphasizing that point, he digs his fingertips harder into Dean's wrist—but thankfully, he skips out on using his nails for now. "What you've described sounds a great deal like depression, Dean, and you can't expect yourself to handle it alone."

"In case you haven't noticed, Cas? I handle everything—everything like this, anyway—on my own. It's just better that way."

"At least consider seeing someone at health services. If you go just once and don't get anything out of it, then I'll never bring it up again."

Dean groans—he can't even _believe_ he's thinking about agreeing with this bullshit deal. If Dad could see him now, Dean would be in for about fifty different worlds of hurt—about fifty different lectures about how shrinks just work people over and steal their money—but Dean sighs. Tells Cas that fine, he'll go talk to one of the health services therapists or whatever will make Cas happy—and by all appearances, it does. It makes Cas smile. Really smile. And that's got to be worth something.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts used are: "wild card (unrequited pining)" and, "counseling" as a cross-square fill for hc_bingo.

Purportedly, Dean's going to health services for his meeting with a therapist today, and Cas supposes he should be checking the clock out of anxiety or worry or something that doesn't involve glaring at it as though it's wronged him somehow. _Purportedly_ , Dean's going to this appointment, then coming to meet Cas here so they can go grab lunch together. In practice, though, Cas doesn't trust Dean to go to health services by himself—the way that he insisted on going, because he didn't want to think about Cas waiting for him during his appointment—and it's far from being nothing personal. On the other hand, it's everything personal.

"Of course it's personal," Bela tells Cas, drawling and idly twirling her pen around her fingers, ignoring the textbook she used to lure Cas here. "It's an issue of trusting the Crown Prince of Denial to admit that he has a problem and then go get help for it that involves talking to someone. Never mind the issue of how nothing between you two is ever _not_ personal."

Hissing, Cas tries to shush her and looks back and forth. Glances all around them to make sure that no one's going to get them into trouble or anything. Never mind how Bela's reading too much into things again; they're not supposed to be talking in the library—and all that Bela does is smirk at him. She's smirking because she knows that Cas won't keep quiet—that he _can't_ keep quiet—when the subject is Dean. He ought to be stronger than this, more able to resist the allure. At the very least, he ought to respect the sanctity of the library, especially when he hasn't smoked up all day so he can't blame the drugs—but with a heavy sigh, Cas turns to cookie dough in Bela's hands.

"I believe that he's actually quite close to admitting that he has a problem, Bela. It may take him a little while, but I do not think that it is far off—when we last talked about it—"

"You had to all but corner him—as much as you could over dinner—and force him to talk by playing the concern card. You probably pulled out those sad kitten eyes that you do so well—he'd never be able to resist you like that."

It's a miracle that Cas doesn't give in to his desire to beat his forehead into the table. Because, really, Bela's grin makes him want to do something pointlessly violent. Something—anything—as long as there's a good chance it'll hurt him back. There's nothing for that desire—not that Cas can see—all he'd accomplish is cutting off his nose to spite his face. Or breaking his nose for no real purpose. Pain wouldn't end up being with the effort he put into things—so all he manages to do is tell her, in no uncertain terms, that she is—as always—completely wrong on this count, this count where Dean feels anything non-platonic for Cas in the slightest.

"We're just friends, Bela, and that's all we're ever going to be. Dean isn't interested in men."

"How would you know that if you haven't tried anything, Cas?" she points out, chirping and flicking her pen like a magic wand. "You can't exactly tell that Prince Dunderhead isn't open to sex with men unless you _ask him_ —never mind that he might not know you're open to it, given all the time you spend with me and Meg. And if you're judging based on Rhonda Hurley and Cassie Robinson, who's to say they've even had sex? Maybe he's asexual or something."

"That's one of the most asinine, egregious suggestions I've ever heard in my life," Cas says without thinking about it. Because he doesn't need to think about it—the inherent wrongness of the statement more than speaks for itself. "Dean loves sex, Bela. He also loves to talk to me about how much he loves sex. And while that doesn't necessarily mean that he's sexually attracted to anyone, I believe that he was to Cassie and is to Rhonda. And I believe that Rhonda reciprocates the sentiment. And I wish them all the best because I'm a _good friend_."

"Cassie probably did too, you know—at least until he tried to call them off with that ridiculous story about… oh, what was it? Doing observational studies of wolves with his father, the not-mechanic who's really a hotshot biologist, up in Vancouver?"

"That's an improvement on what he wanted to tell her at first. It was going to involve hunting ghosts."

"Ah, yes—what a catch. So committed to monogamous commitment that he attempts to break things off with his girlfriends by telling them stories that don't involve how he waits tables over the summer. Why are you interested in him, again?" She pauses and smirks like a cat breaking into a canary cage. "I'm only asking this as a good friend, mind you."

"A good friend would support my choices and allow me to make my own mistakes instead of questioning my emotions and trying to make me explain something so fundamentally inexplicable as love."

"A _good_ friend would be obligated to point out that your would-be paramour's current relationship status is single—at least, that's what I think constitutes being a good friend. I suppose I can't say for your definition of the term."

"Dean spends an inordinate amount of time with Rhonda, Bela. I believe that they are more than friends."

"They are, certainly, but… do you have any idea how, 'friends with benefits' works, Pretty Boy?"

"I presume that it's not entirely unlike the social edifice of being boyfriend, girlfriend, or otherwise significant others. The word _friend_ is quite consistently involved." Cas shrugs and looks back down to his book. He came here to work on his reading for Doctor Visyak's art history class—the same reading that Bela's supposed to be doing with him—and so help him, he's going to get at least some of it done. He just has to make sure that Bela knows what he thinks as well.

Bela rolls her eyes. "Not entirely unlike it, no—simply absent all of the issues concerning commitment and feelings and everything else that Dean purports to hate so much."

"He has mentioned before that Rhonda, and I quote, 'just gets it'—" Without a trace of irony, Cas makes quotation marks with his fingers and says, "What the aforementioned, 'it' is, I have no idea, but it seems rather important to Dean. One can tell because he ceases to talk at any kind of length about it. I believe that their relationship might be rather more than you are making it out to be."

"Again: have you even bothered to ask Dean? About any of this? At all?"

"Why would I even bother when it is really quite pointless?"

"Because if this so-called pointlessness is defined by dating Rhonda Hurley, then I believe that your situation is much less pointless than _you're_ making it out to be. Honestly, Cas. Considering my extremely low opinion of Dean—and my rather high opinion of you—would I be encouraging you in your affections for him if I thought they were pointless?"

"You might be overlooking your fondness for me in order to ruin his relationship and his standing in Rhonda's opinion."

"The thought occurred to me, but even I'm not that conniving—besides that, he's likely enough to do that without my help. Anyway, I have certain personal standards of behavior and codes of conduct, and I don't want to be responsible for ruining an honest-to-God relationship. All I've said is that the situation is infinitely less pointless than you seem to think that it is."

"And infinitely more complicated than a simple matter of whether or not Dean's dating someone else, Bela." Cas sighs. He closes his book, since he's barely reading it anyway—the words are all melding together into a haze because Bela insists on trying to convince him that the world works according to whatever design she has in mind for it all—and he looks up at her. He watches her tucking her hair behind her ear, blinking at him as if to dare him into arguing with her. Technically, he supposes that her silent attempts at baiting him will work—he's going to speak his piece and get it out there into the ether, after all—but Cas doesn't want an argument. That would require an amount of energy that the rest of this conversation's rather sapped from him.

"There's too much at risk, Bela," he says, keeping his voice low and quiet, making her lean closer to him so she can hear. "There's too much at stake and too much I could stand to lose in pursuing a relationship with Dean—and yes, there's a great deal that I would stand to gain as well—and yes, there's no chance for great gains without the chance of great loss, but… I would much rather simply be Dean's friend than risk scaring him off and losing what I have because I wanted too much more."

"So you're content with never getting answers to any of these nagging questions, then?" Bela knows exactly what cards to play, and Cas could almost hate her for it, if she weren't herself, and if she weren't one of his favorite people. "Caspian Milton the Curious Kitten is perfectly fine with never knowing whether or not he's any kind of right in his judgments of Dean Winchester, the Crown Prince of Denial?"

Once again, Cas wants to beat his forehead into the table—preferably into one of the sharp edges thereof. But all he does is tell her, "No, I'm not. But that dissatisfaction is simply something that I will need to learn to live with. I believe it's deemed a part of, 'growing up.'"


	9. Chapter 9

"So, y'see, going to health services alone was really an elaborate ruse because I didn't want Cas to feel bad about me asking you to come instead."

"Yeah, and I'm sure he hasn't seen through it or started worrying about whether or not you're actually going at all. How foolish of me to think that you didn't need anybody to come and corral you into taking care of yourself."

Dean slouches in his waiting room chair, splaying his legs out into the open space between him and the table with the old magazines and back-issues of the school paper. It's not like anybody's actually trying to get through and tripping over his calves and feet, and he needs a better angle so he can frown and wrinkle his nose at Viktor. "Are you being sarcastic with me right now?"

"No, Dean, of course not," Viktor drawls, folding his arms over his chest. "I'm being perfectly sincere and not even a little bit bitter about the fact that one of the only people I genuinely like on this campus—this person being you—has the single worst attitude I have _ever_ encountered about making sure that he's not going to wake up dead some morning."

"God, you're such a dick sometimes."

"Could say the same about you without even trying to make a case. You'd probably just make it for me."

"Never said I wasn't a dick. Never planned on denying it if you wanted to call me one. I sure as Hell feel like a dick over pretty much everything I do—or everything I _don't_ do, the way it's usually been lately. Which is why I'm here in the first place—aside from the whole part about making Cas shut up about how I'm supposed to be depressed or whatever he thinks I am." Sighing, Dean knocks his head into the wall. "All this Singer guy's gonna tell me is that I need to nut up and quit whining about my bullshit problems. Which I already knew, so… y'know, whatever."

Viktor doesn't even try to hide how much he rolls his eyes—and just when Dean thinks it can't possibly get any worse, Viktor huffs and gets a look on his face that screams, _I'm not mad; I'm disappointed_. When he moves his hand, Dean flinches, half-expecting to get thumped on the back of the head—but all Viktor does is grab the bridge of his nose and grind at it. His sigh comes out heavy, more than a little exasperated, and when he glances back in Dean's direction, the expression he's wearing is one that Dean's not used to seeing—not even on Cas, who pulls it out more often than anybody else Dean knows. Viktor's eyes are wide, his brow's knotted up, and he looks half-pleading and mostly _tired_.

"Anybody who'd tell you to quit whining about your so-called 'bullshit problems' wouldn't make it very far as a therapist," he says. "And if Singer actually tells you something like that, then I'll be the first to apologize for being so much on Team 'Dean needs to see someone at health services'—but how about you don't just poke holes in all of this until you're actually talking to the guy, okay?"

It takes Dean too long to figure out what he wants to say in response—his tongue feels thick and immobile, and words all blank out of his head the way that everything else does so often—and when he ends up saying anything, it all feels so pointlessly stupid: "Okay, like… I just. Jesus, Viktor, don't have a—"

"No, how about you don't _Jesus, Viktor_ me, Dean?" Viktor's voice is taut, straining—and the way he looks at Dean sends a shiver down Dean's spine. "I know this is hard for you," he says. "God knows I know it's hard for you to talk about your feelings, and to admit that you have any kind of issues, but… please? Make an effort? Stop trying to dismantle this and actually talk to the guy, even just a little bit? You won't talk to Cas, you won't talk to me or your brother, something's wrong with you and we can't do anything to help—"

"And what makes you so sure that this guy's gonna help me any—"

"I'm _not_ sure, how's that for an answer? I'm not sure. But something isn't right and I've got to hope that the guy with all the training in making things _get better_ might be able to help you out, okay?"

Dean means to agree—especially considering how Viktor sounds right now, how intently he's glaring at Dean—but he doesn't have time. Before he can even open his mouth, some grizzly-looking, bearded older dude comes out into the waiting room and calls him back.


	10. Chapter 10

This year is cold—colder than Cas can remember any other year being, and on Halloween, they get snow and a winter storm warning.

Instead of going to the party he planned on attending—instead of trekking across campus, over to the row of Heyerdahl Houses, to the one where Crowley and his housemates have set up some assortment of drinks and other things that Cas can't predict—Cas sits on his bed, slouched against the wall, waiting for a container of Easy-Mac to finish microwaving because they're not supposed to go out of their dorms tonight.

All this because Mrs. Mills, the Dean of Student Life, consulted the weather reports and thinks that it might be unsafe, with the reduced vision and the wind. If only Cas had been somewhere other than the room when the campus safety alert went out. At least the heat might be on in the Heyerdahl Houses. At least they might not be freezing down to their bones, despite wearing two t-shirts, a sweatshirt, and a cocoon made from their comforter and one of Grandmother's afghans.

Worse still is the attitude problem going on in this room—Cas wants to blame it all on Dean, but on the other hand, it's not entirely Dean's fault. Cas hasn't done anything to fix the problem, either. Once again, he and Dean have nothing to say to each other, and for all Cas wishes that this silence were an easy one—something brought on by how well, how long they've known each other and how comfortable they are with each other—it's not. It's more like watching the tide pull out before a wave comes back, crashing on the shore.

They listen to the microwave's dry, electric crackling and then the plastic-on-plastic scrape of Cas stirring his noodles and cheese sauce with a fork. They listen to the wind rocking back and forth against the window, and sometimes, Dean tries to peer out into the darkness, searching for something—maybe hints of snow dancing in the street-lamps' glow, maybe something else. It doesn't matter. Not very much, Cas thinks. If it did, Dean might open his mouth and attempt to explain himself, instead of keeping up the damnable silence.

And finally, Dean says it—says something, says anything at all. He's slumped into the corner where his bed's shoved up against the wall, legs balled up near his chest and head lolling against the wall, and he says, "Bet you wish you were at _Crowley's_ right now, don't you."

It isn't much, and it shouldn't hurt, but it still smacks into Cas's face as though Dean delivered it with an open palm instead. It might've been nicer for him to just slap Cas—at least that wouldn't've set Cas's stomach writhing and curling in on itself, turned it into an enormous clump of worms, all trying to wriggle through the same bit of earth. Cas stabs the fork into his Easy-Mac and guesses that he does wish this.

"I generally prefer it when things go according to plan," he says, "rather than having to deal with last-minute changes in plan. I suppose that you wish I were there as well."

"At this point, Cas? Sure. Just—why the fuck not. I wish you were there. I wish you were at Crowley's and having a good time instead of sulking like I stood you up on prom night or something. Maybe at least one of us could have a decent night."

Cas rolls his eyes and scrapes his fork against the plastic cup, just because the sound's annoying. "I believe your therapist at health services has more of a right to complain about getting stood up, Dean," he says, going for cool and sounding more like frostbite. "Your attitude displays a hearty lack of progress—I can only assume that you lied to me about going to see someone—"

"Whoa, whoa—wait a fucking minute, Cas," Dean snaps, and flings a pillow that Cas barely manages to catch. "What the fuck, are you my mother? Do I have to prove to you that I've been going to my appointments, now?"

There's little Cas can do but blink at that statement, tilt his head slightly to the left as though Dean might make more sense sideways. "Appointments, plural?" he says.

"Yes, Cas. _Appointments_ , plural—I've even got one coming up with Doctor Ellicott, this psychiatrist down in town. Doctor Singer thinks I need a consult about medication sooner rather than later."

"Forgive me for assuming the opposite—and you don't need to confirm or prove anything to me—but I was _concerned_ —"

"What're you getting concerned for if I don't have to prove anything to you? What's so bad—what's so _concerning_ —about me asking if you want to be at Crowley's and wishing you'd have a nice night?"

"Perhaps I simply got distracted by the fact that you made an inference—an incorrect one, I might add—as to my wishes and my emotional state. Perhaps I find it concerning that you now find my company so objectionable as to wish that I were at Crowley's instead of here, with you."

"Wait, wait—hold on—I." Dean knocks his head back against the wall, then explains that Doctor Singer says he's not supposed to do that anymore. "It's some kind of self-harming thing, he says. But, Cas…" He pauses long enough that Cas actually bothers to meet Dean's eyes, and it's only then that he says, "I never said anything about not wanting you around or whatever, did I?"

"You didn't have to say it, Dean. I may not be the most adept at interpersonal nuances, but I believe you made the sentiment quite obvious, really."

"Well, I didn't mean anything like that—and I still didn't say anything about not wanting you around, okay? I'm _glad_ you're here instead of at Crowley's. Maybe it's not my place to say anything about how often you smoke up—"

"It isn't—and I think you have a decidedly mistaken view of how often I do so, by the way—"

"But come on, Cas—Crowley's a dick. A grade-A douchenozzle. Not like I'm some great prize myself or anything, but… isn't it _better_ not having to spend that much time with him? You don't really like him, do you?" The expression on Dean's face makes something in Cas's stomach twist up around itself—he can't be sure of what emotion Dean's attempting to convey, but the way he's curled up his lips and the way he's wrinkling his nose suggest that he's more than a bit invested in how Cas answers this question.

Cas sighs and sets his empty container on the desk. The fact that there isn't a book perfectly explaining how to navigate the situations that he finds himself in with Dean will always be something that he hates. "I don't like Crowley very much at all, Dean," he says. "All he does is provide a good that I wish to purchase. That's all he ever has been to me—in fact, much of the time I spend with him… I would rather spend here. I would rather spend it with you."

"So why don't you just spend it with me, then?"

"Because I know your opinion about the drugs, Dean. I stand by what I said—I may have started smoking a great deal more than I ever had in a very short amount of time, but I do not smoke as often as you seem to think—but I don't see any reason why you should be subjected to my smoking when it bothers you so much."

They go quiet again after that—briefly, but for long enough that Cas worries he's somehow ruined everything. The next thing Cas knows, though, the mattress shifts as Dean flops down next to him, rustles as Dean drags his legs up to his chest again. "Cas," he says, "I don't… Yeah, okay. I'm concerned about how much you're smoking? But I don't—it wasn't ever just about the drugs, I mean… I just want to know you're okay, you know?"

"I believe that I do know that sentiment," Cas says and hugs his own legs to his chest. "I feel the same way about you, Dean. I have only ever wanted to know that you are all right."

"Yeah, well… it's pretty hard to say that you're all right when you feel wrong all the time." Dean knocks his head into the wall again, apologizes for it without missing a beat. "It's not even some kind of body thing—well, it kind of is, but it kind of isn't… Do you ever just feel like, you're not a guy, but you're not a girl, either? You're something different, and everything about your body's just kind of fucking wrong?"

Cas shakes his head and reaches over to squeeze Dean's knee. "But just because I've never felt that way doesn't invalidate the fact that you do."

Once more, they go quiet, but it's different, this time. Dean looks over at Cas, forcing a tight, wobbly smile—and in some silent agreement, they rearrange themselves, stretching out on the bed instead of sitting up. Cas spreads the comforter and the afghan over top of them, and loops his arm around Dean's waist, presses himself into Dean's back and noses at the back of Dean's neck. And although Dean doesn't have anything to say about this, he doesn't really need to say anything. He puts his hand over Cas's instead, brushes his thumb in gentle strokes along Cas's wrist.


End file.
